All that glitters is not gold, officials at the Perumbavur police station in Ernakulam rural district seem to have learnt it the hard way.
Last week, the cops here stumbled upon the operation of a racket involving inter-state migrant labourers, which attempted to sell gold to a jewellery shop owner in Kalamassery. The racket was busted on a tip-off from residents of Kandanthara near here, who alerted the police of a suspicious transaction taking place between two groups of unidentified people.
The police rushed to the spot, took all the five persons including two Keralites into custody and seized a couple of gold bars from their possession.
An examination of the seized material showed it as nothing but pieces of brass plated with gold. As both the parties had no complaints, the police let them go after a grilling session that lasted for about two hours. According to officials, this was for the second time that they had busted an attempt to sell fake gold. “In both the cases, the clients were jewellery shop owners from Ernakulam, who were earlier accused of buying stolen gold ornaments from notorious thieves. On the other hand, Odisha is the place from where the gold in both cases originated’’, said Honey.K.Das, sub-Inspector, Perumbavur.
Further investigations pointed to the operation of a dedicated fake gold racket, which thrive on cheating small-scale gold jewellery vendors. “There is hardly any chance of the victims lodging a police complaint, considering their dubious credentials. In the first instance, we pursued a cheating case against the sellers though no further arrests were made in the absence of specific leads’’, explained a senior official with the Ernakulam rural police.
The police are now looking to figure out whether similar transactions had taken place in the area before these incidents. So far, they have been unable to obtain any leads in this direction.
